Remiss

The test over,
nervous wait commences
twenty-one days
slim brown envelope
rasp of letterbox
slaps cold tiles
hold think stare
future folded neatly
slow fearful opening
resignation bad results
exhale deep breath
negative news positive
slow tear trickles
thoughts lost blindly
another year bought
relief reprieve sentence?



© Graham Sherwood 05/2015

Going Home

(Inspired by Travels with Charlie, John Steinbeck).

Why this ache to return?
this was home when you lived here
were born here,
old friends you seek
are now truly old
not the blood brothers you once knew,
played with, laughed with, cried with,
died for.


Walks seemed longer then
trees taller,
roads safer,
days warmer
now innocence is nowhere to be found.


Girlfriends all gone away, taken as wives,
old adversaries some have died
or now look benign as you.
Why take them for a drink
old warriors now seeing sense,
of those stupid teenage vendettas,
let dogs lie.


Console yourself with landmarks
the ironstone church, ruined folly
Dick Turpin’s obelisk, steadfast,
now seated cheek by jowl amongst plastic flats.


So go,
sit on the deserted cricket square
let wickets tumble with your memories,
then leave,
you shouldn’t have returned,
you left for a better life
outside, somewhere else
why don’t you understand
You don’t belong here?






© Graham Sherwood 05/2015

Night Howls

Radio Luxembourg, wafting in and out
on a faulty crystal set 1964,
ethereal reception, a night ghoul
rhythmic pulsing
a foggy heartbeat,
something evil breathing unseen
in the bedroom's dark.


Our two local village greasers,
scrawny boys, clinging on for dear life
to a wraith-like bastard Norton,
self-built, unpolished black
screaming and squealing past, late
heading to the Beehive Cafe,
a sticky end coming
them two, my mother would scowl.


With sleep close, a Jubilee class
clear three miles away,
a Banshee howling past the Weetabix,
the sweet cereal pong
hanging on a easterly breeze,
I never ate them after Gibbo started there
she always had a candle off her nose.


My father, head hard against the board
snoring on the in-breath,
beauteous music,
a bizarre unmanly angelic chorale
metronomic,
asking a question, who? Who?


Now they’ve all gone,
Crystal sets to DAB
Sep and Coxey dead
cleaned up in July 1965 on the A6,
Jubes to Diesels,
Weetabix to the Chinks
and my father to an embolism
aged just sixty-one.


All gone,
but the nights still howl.





© Graham Sherwood 05/2015

Bakers-do-Zen

Flour, a dense weight,
in the hand weightless,
should water be dry
it could be flour


© Graham Sherwood 05/2015